Chapter 1 #2
"Only twice?" I grab a dahlia, start trimming like she showed me. "He's growing."
"He wants you to go to Portugal."
"I know."
"He says you need to rest."
"I am resting."
She glances sideways at me. "You're trimming dahlias."
"Restfully."
She shakes her head, but she's still smiling. She knows better than to push. Rome pushes until I want to scream. Erin just lets me be and she figured out a long time ago that the best way to care for me is to let me make my own decisions, even when they're probably stupid.
The door bangs open so hard the bell doesn't even get a chance to chime.
"Oh my God, she's actually here!"
Ruth enters like weather. She is a force of nature in a fleece vest and reading glasses, carrying coffees, her grin practically aggressive.
"Hi, Ruth," I greet, but she's already setting the coffees down and grabbing my face with both hands.
She holds me there for exactly three seconds, examining me like I'm a painting she's appraising.
"Unreal," she declares. "Disney princess face. You should be illegal."
"I'm a real person, Ruth."
"Don't roll your eyes at me, missy," she scolds, finally releasing my cheeks. "Nobody looks like this in February. It's twenty-eight degrees. You should look terrible. Why don't you look terrible?"
"Genetics and spite?"
She laughs, loud and delighted, then kisses my cheek with a loud smack. Then she turns to Erin like I'm no longer the most interesting thing in the room.
"Did you hear?" she gasps, settling onto her usual stool. "Mabel's son got pulled over on Route 9 doing sixty in a thirty. Again. Third time this year and it's only the end of February."
And the gossip machine powers on. Ruth talks. Erin trims flowers and makes the right noises at the right moments. I stand between them with dahlias in my hand and coffee going cold, and I actually breathe, for the first time in months.
Ruth stays forty-five minutes. In that time, I learn about Mabel's son and his apparent death wish on Route 9.
Someone's son helping her at the diner who's "too pretty to be trusted.
" A suspected affair between two people I've never met.
The precise calorie count of Ruth's pie, which she announces with pride rather than shame.
"How long are you staying, sweetheart?" she asks, finally pulling on her coat.
"A year. Maybe longer."
"Good." She points at me, eyes narrowing. "You belong here. Tell your brother I said so."
The door slams behind her. The bell swings wildly, still recovering from the abuse.
"She's never going to stop calling me Disney princess, is she?" I sigh.
Erin rearranges a finished display. "Not in this lifetime."
By noon, I've trimmed three buckets of flowers, reorganized the ribbon drawer, eaten half a sandwich Erin made me, and texted Rome back four times.
He is relentless.
Was I eating?
Yes.
Was the heat working?
Yes.
Had I looked into that European tour?
No, Rome. I have not looked into the European tour, because I don't want a European tour. I want Sunday dinners and inside jokes and people who know how I take my coffee. He builds dream houses for a living, but can't understand that I don't want a plane ticket. I want a home.
Around one, the door opens again and Poppy breezes in. Messy bun, a bag of pastries from the corner bakery and energy that could power a small city. She is Erin’s childhood best friend, and now mine, too.
So many people I met in this town took me in, people I now consider friends. Even Ramsey, who usually only has eyes for Poppy, let me be one of them despite me being younger.
"She's here, she's here, she's here!" Poppy squeals, dropping the bag on the counter and throwing her arms around me.
Poppy hugs like she means it. Like she wants you to feel it in your skeleton, and I sink into it.
"I'm here.”
"How's the apartment? Is it cute? Did you cry?" she demands, already pulling back and reaching for the pastry bag.
"It smells like lavender. It's super cute. I didn't cry."
"She almost cried," Erin chimes in.
”I did not almost cry."
"Her eyes got shiny," Erin adds, and I can hear the smile in her voice.
"My eyes get shiny. It's the new mascara."
Poppy pulls herself onto the counter, legs swinging like a kid.
"So. What's the plan?" She tears off a piece of her treat, pops it in her mouth. "Are you working here now? Are you just vibing?"
She grins, wicked. "Are you going to finally admit that you moved to this town for a certain firefighter with a stammering problem every time he sees you?"
I throw a stem at her. "I moved here for rest and emotional recovery," I say firmly.
"Uh huh."
"And because I love Erin."
"Totally," she agrees, biting into her pastry. "None of it has anything to do with Cal Holt?”
My stomach drops. Small, involuntary and deeply stupid. I'm choosing to ignore it.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I lie, focusing very hard on the dahlias.
"You went nonverbal on a staircase when you met him, Lily," Poppy reminds me, licking icing off her thumb like she's discussing the weather. "I was there."
"I did not go nonverbal. He did."
"You literally froze," she presses, pointing her pastry at me. "Mid-step. I was there."
I line up three dahlias. Trim them at once.
"I paused."
“She paused," Erin repeats flatly, and the look she gives Poppy over the roses is criminal.
I set the scissors down with a sigh.
"I'm going to regret moving here, is that it?”
They both grin at me. The exact same grin, which is terrifying because they're not even related.
Last summer, I met said Callahan exactly once, and I had indeed lost myself a little. It was a warm night, my two best friends dragging me out for drinks, when I stopped short on the stairs.
He was coming up, head down, eyes on his phone, but I could see the rest of him—tall, broad, and gorgeous. Then his head came up and he went completely still, and I forgot how stairs worked at the sight of those sea-green eyes.
"Callahan," he had blurted when I had introduced myself, then shook his head like he'd gotten it wrong. "Just Cal. Everyone calls me Cal.”
Hot. Adorable. Stammering through his own name like he'd never said it before.
I remember saying "I'm not everyone" at that and watching him forget how to walk.
We crossed paths a few more times after that. Spoke even less. I went back to Chicago and didn't think about it. Much.
"He's just a person," I say with a shrug. Very casual. Very unbothered.
"A person you haven't stopped thinking about," Poppy sing-songs, grin insufferable.
"I stop sometimes. I sleep," I grin back.
"Do you dream about him?" she asks, leaning forward with way too much interest.
"Goodbye, Poppy."
She cackles, nearly choking on her pastry. Erin covers her mouth, but her shoulders shake.
Poppy's never wrong about this stuff. It's the most irritating thing about her. She can spot a crush from four hundred yards, and mine is right there on the surface, barely hidden. Probably glowing.
He had been an expert at avoiding me after that first meeting. He walked the other way when he saw me on the street once, yet still managed to track my every move across a pub table all night.
He's here. Somewhere. Between the firehouse and wherever he lives, going about his days like I'm not blocks away unpacking boxes.
Maybe he's been replaying it, too. Six months of that voice crack living rent-free in his head, same as mine.
"You're smiling," Erin says, cutting through my thoughts.
"I'm not."
"Your whole face is smiling, Lily."
"It's the lavender," I insist, turning away so she can't see. "I'm having an allergic reaction."
She grunts, and bumps me with her shoulder.
Outside, February is gray and cold. Inside, Harbor Hill is small and quiet and mine. I grin at the dahlias like an idiot.